The thousand and one nights (Volume 1): commonly called, in England, the Arabian nights' entertainments . owever, stood looking at the ladies, and admiringtheir beauty and their agreeable dispositions; for he had never seenany more handsome; and when he observed that they had not a manamong them, and gazed upon the wine, and fruits, and sweet-scentedflowers, which were there, he was full of astonishment, and hesitatedto go out; upon which one of the ladies said to him, Why dost thounot go ? dost thou deem thy hire too little ? Then turning to one ofher sisters, she said to her, Give him anothe
The thousand and one nights (Volume 1): commonly called, in England, the Arabian nights' entertainments . owever, stood looking at the ladies, and admiringtheir beauty and their agreeable dispositions; for he had never seenany more handsome; and when he observed that they had not a manamong them, and gazed upon the wine, and fruits, and sweet-scentedflowers, which were there, he was full of astonishment, and hesitatedto go out; upon which one of the ladies said to him, Why dost thounot go ? dost thou deem thy hire too little ? Then turning to one ofher sisters, she said to her, Give him another piece of gold.—By Allah,O my mistress, exclaimed the porter, my hire is but two half-dirhems,17and I thought not what ye have given me too little ; but my heart andmind were occupied with reflections upon you and your state, ye beingalone, with no man among you, not one to amuse you with his com-pany ; for ye know that the menareh1 standeth not firmly but on fourwalls : now ye have not a fourth, and the pleasure of women is notcomplete without men : ye are three only, and have need of a fourth, X. who should be a man, a person of sense, discreet, acute, and a con-cealer of secrets. We are maidens, they replied; and fear to impartour secret to him who will not keep it; for we have read, in a certainhistory, this verse :— Guard thy secret from another: intrust it not: for he who intrusteth a secrethath lost it. —By your existence, said the porter, I am a man of sense, and trust-worthy : I have read various books, and perused histories: I makeknown what is fair, and conceal what is foul, and act in accordancewith the saying of the poet:— None keepeth a secret but a faithful persoii: with the best of mankind it re- maineth secret is with me as in a house with a lock, whose key is lost, and whose door is When the ladies heard the verses which he quoted, and the words withwhich he addressed them, they said to him, Thou knowest that wehave expended here
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, bookpublisherlondo, bookyear1883
